1983

Academy winner Terms of Endearment poster

Terms of Endearment

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Should have won Scarface poster

Scarface

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The Academy's ballot

🏆Terms of Endearment#1070.89 🎬The Right Stuff#473.73 🎬The Big Chill#1667.73 🎬Tender Mercies#1766.37 🎬The Dresser#1865.11

Your #1 was Scarface (#1).

The full slate

Scarface (1983)

⭐ Top-rated🏛️ All-time great

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Dir. Brian De Palma · Al Pacino · Steven Bauer · Michelle Pfeiffer · Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio

IMDb 8.3 (1,019,843 votes) · TMDB 8.156

After getting a green card in exchange for assassinating a Cuban government official, Tony Montana stakes a claim on the drug trade in Miami. Viciously murdering anyone who stands in his way, Tony eventually becomes the biggest drug lord in the state, controlling nearly all the cocaine that comes through Miami. But increased pressure from the police, wars with Colombian drug cartels and his own drug-fueled paranoia serve to fuel the flames of his eventual downfall.

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Return of the Jedi (1983)

⭐ Top-rated🏛️ All-time great💰 Box office #1

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Dir. Richard Marquand · Mark Hamill · Harrison Ford · Carrie Fisher · Billy Dee Williams

IMDb 8.3 (1,212,573 votes) · TMDB 7.909

Luke Skywalker leads a mission to rescue his friend Han Solo from the clutches of Jabba the Hutt, the Emperor prepares to crush the Rebellion with a more powerful Death Star, and the Rebel fleet mounts a massive attack on the space station. Luke Skywalker confronts Darth Vader in a final climactic duel before the evil Emperor.

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A Christmas Story (1983)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Bob Clark · Melinda Dillon · Darren McGavin · Peter Billingsley · Jean Shepherd

IMDb 7.9 (179,602 votes) · TMDB 7.232

The comic mishaps and adventures of a young boy named Ralph, trying to convince his parents, teachers, and Santa that a Red Ryder B.B. gun really is the perfect Christmas gift for the 1940s.

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The Right Stuff (1983)

🎬 Nominee⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Philip Kaufman · Sam Shepard · Scott Glenn · Ed Harris · Dennis Quaid

IMDb 7.8 (67,997 votes) · TMDB 7.415

At the dawn of the Space Race, seven test pilots set out to become the first American astronauts to enter space. However, the road to making history brings momentous challenges.

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Nostalgia (1983)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Andrei Tarkovsky · Oleg Yankovskiy · Erland Josephson · Domiziana Giordano · Patrizia Terreno

IMDb 7.9 (33,204 votes) · TMDB 7.8

Russian poet Andrei Gorchakov journeys through Italy with his interpreter Eugenia to research the life of an 18th-century Russian composer who once lived abroad. Isolated and consumed by an unrelenting longing for his homeland, Andrei becomes drawn to Domenico, a radical mystic obsessed with spiritual redemption. Through austere imagery and extended temporal rhythms, Tarkovsky examines exile, memory, and the profound melancholy of being unable to belong fully to either place or language.

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Trading Places (1983)

⭐ Top-rated💰 Box office #9

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Dir. John Landis · Dan Aykroyd · Eddie Murphy · Ralph Bellamy · Don Ameche

IMDb 7.5 (183,207 votes) · TMDB 7.226

A snobbish investor and a wily street con-artist find their positions reversed as part of a bet by two callous millionaires.

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Monty Python's the Meaning of Life poster

Monty Python's the Meaning of Life (1983)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Terry Jones · Terry Gilliam · Graham Chapman · John Cleese · Eric Idle

IMDb 7.5 (130,275 votes) · TMDB 7.3

Life's questions are 'answered' in a series of outrageous vignettes, beginning with a staid London insurance company which transforms before our eyes into a pirate ship. Then there's the National Health doctors who try to claim a healthy liver from a still-living donor. The world's most voracious glutton brings the art of vomiting to new heights before his spectacular demise.

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Zelig (1983)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Woody Allen · Woody Allen · Mia Farrow · Patrick Horgan · John Buckwalter

IMDb 7.6 (46,095 votes) · TMDB 7.425

Fictional documentary about the life of human chameleon Leonard Zelig, a man who becomes a celebrity in the 1920s due to his ability to look and act like whoever is around him. Clever editing places Zelig in real newsreel footage of Woodrow Wilson, Babe Ruth, and others.

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National Lampoon's Vacation (1983)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Harold Ramis · Chevy Chase · Beverly D'Angelo · Anthony Michael Hall · Imogene Coca

IMDb 7.3 (128,677 votes) · TMDB 7.1

Clark Griswold is on a quest to take his family to the Walley World theme park for a vacation, but things don't go exactly as planned.

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#10

Terms of Endearment (1983)

🏆 Winner⭐ Top-rated💰 Box office #8

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Dir. James L. Brooks · Shirley MacLaine · Debra Winger · Jack Nicholson · Danny DeVito

IMDb 7.4 (70,794 votes) · TMDB 7.128

Aurora, a finicky woman, is in search of true love while her daughter faces marital issues. Together, they help each other deal with problems and find reasons to live a joyful life.

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#11

Videodrome (1983)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. David Cronenberg · James Woods · Debbie Harry · Sonja Smits · Peter Dvorsky

IMDb 7.2 (113,342 votes) · TMDB 7.249

As the president of a trashy TV channel, Max Renn is desperate for new programming to attract viewers. When he happens upon "Videodrome," a TV show dedicated to gratuitous torture and punishment, Max sees a potential hit and broadcasts the show on his channel. However, after his girlfriend auditions for the show and never returns, Max investigates the truth behind Videodrome and discovers that the graphic violence may not be as fake as he thought.

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#12

Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (1983)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Kundan Shah · Naseeruddin Shah · Ravi Baswani · Bhakti Barve · Satish Shah

IMDb 8.3 (17,636 votes) · TMDB 7.154

Two zanies open a photography studio. They score a partnership with a gossip magazine that suddenly thrusts them into a world of corruption, murder, and hijinks.

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#13

WarGames (1983)

⭐ Top-rated💰 Box office #7

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Dir. John Badham · Matthew Broderick · Dabney Coleman · John Wood · Ally Sheedy

IMDb 7.1 (122,009 votes) · TMDB 7.066

High school student David Lightman has a talent for hacking. But while trying to hack into a computer system to play unreleased video games, he unwittingly taps into the Department of Defense's war computer and initiates a confrontation of global proportions. Together with his friend and a wizardly computer genius, David must race against time to outwit his opponent and prevent a nuclear Armageddon.

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#14

The Dead Zone (1983)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. David Cronenberg · Christopher Walken · Brooke Adams · Tom Skerritt · Herbert Lom

IMDb 7.2 (84,823 votes) · TMDB 7.012

Johnny Smith is a schoolteacher with his whole life ahead of him but, after leaving his fiancee's home one night, is involved in a car crash which leaves him in a coma for 5 years. When he wakes, he discovers he has an ability to see into the past, present and future life of anyone with whom he comes into physical contact.

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#15

The Outsiders (1983)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Francis Ford Coppola · C. Thomas Howell · Matt Dillon · Ralph Macchio · Patrick Swayze

IMDb 7.0 (109,970 votes) · TMDB 7.184

In 1960s Tulsa, class divisions ignite a violent rivalry between the working-class Greasers and the privileged Socs. When a deadly encounter forces two Greasers, Ponyboy and Johnny, to flee, their struggle for survival and redemption exposes the fragile innocence and enduring bonds of youth on the wrong side of town.

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#16

The Big Chill (1983)

🎬 Nominee

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Dir. Lawrence Kasdan · Tom Berenger · Glenn Close · Jeff Goldblum · William Hurt

IMDb 7.1 (45,547 votes) · TMDB 6.8

Seven old college friends gather for a weekend reunion after the funeral of one of their own.

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#17

Tender Mercies (1983)

🎬 Nominee

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Dir. Bruce Beresford · Robert Duvall · Tess Harper · Betty Buckley · Wilford Brimley

IMDb 7.3 (14,466 votes) · TMDB 6.8

Alcoholic former country singer Mac Sledge makes friends with a young widow and her son. The friendship enables him to find inspiration to resume his career.

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#18

The Dresser (1983)

🎬 Nominee

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Dir. Peter Yates · Albert Finney · Tom Courtenay · Edward Fox · Zena Walker

IMDb 7.4 (6,397 votes) · TMDB 6.772

In a touring Shakespearean theater group, a backstage hand - the dresser - is devoted to the brilliant but tyrannical head of the company. He struggles to support the deteriorating star as the company struggles to carry on during the London Blitz. The pathos of his backstage efforts rival the pathos in the story of Lear and the Fool that is being presented on-stage, as the situation comes to a crisis.

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#19

Sudden Impact (1983)

💰 Box office #5

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Dir. Clint Eastwood · Clint Eastwood · Sondra Locke · Pat Hingle · Bradford Dillman

IMDb 6.6 (52,427 votes) · TMDB 6.5

When a young rape victim takes justice into her own hands and becomes a serial killer, it's up to Dirty Harry Callahan, on suspension from the SFPD, to bring her to justice.

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#20

Octopussy (1983)

💰 Box office #3

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Dir. John Glen · Roger Moore · Maud Adams · Louis Jourdan · Kristina Wayborn

IMDb 6.5 (120,218 votes) · TMDB 6.355

James Bond is sent to investigate after a fellow “00” agent is found dead with a priceless Indian Fabergé egg. Bond follows the mystery and uncovers a smuggling scandal and a Russian General who wants to provoke a new World War.

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#21

Flashdance (1983)

💰 Box office #2

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Dir. Adrian Lyne · Jennifer Beals · Michael Nouri · Sunny Johnson · Kyle T. Heffner

IMDb 6.2 (64,409 votes) · TMDB 6.49

Alex Owens, a young woman juggling between two odd jobs, aspires to become a successful ballet dancer. Nick, who is her boss and lover, supports and encourages her to fulfil her dream.

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#22

Never Say Never Again (1983)

💰 Box office #4

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Dir. Irvin Kershner · Sean Connery · Klaus Maria Brandauer · Max von Sydow · Barbara Carrera

IMDb 6.1 (78,586 votes) · TMDB 6.063

James Bond returns as the secret agent 007 to battle the evil organization SPECTRE. Bond must defeat Largo, who has stolen two atomic warheads for nuclear blackmail. But Bond has an ally in Largo's girlfriend, the willowy Domino, who falls for Bond and seeks revenge.

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#23

Staying Alive (1983)

💰 Box office #6

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Dir. Sylvester Stallone · John Travolta · Cynthia Rhodes · Finola Hughes · Steve Inwood

IMDb 4.8 (18,804 votes) · TMDB 5.774

It's five years later and Tony Manero's Saturday Night Fever is still burning. Now he's strutting toward his biggest challenger yet - making it as a dancer on the Broadway stage.

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#24

Jaws 3-D (1983)

💰 Box office #10

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Dir. Joe Alves · Dennis Quaid · Bess Armstrong · Simon MacCorkindale · Louis Gossett Jr.

IMDb 3.8 (52,905 votes) · TMDB 4.482

A giant thirty-five-foot shark becomes trapped in a SeaWorld theme park and it's up to the sons of police chief Brody to rescue everyone.

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How scoring works: films are ranked by a composite of a weighted (Bayesian) IMDb rating — the same method as the IMDb Top 250, so a high score from few voters can't outrank a strong score from many — blended with TMDB. Box office is a tiebreaker and a badge, never part of the score. Raw IMDb ratings and vote counts are shown on each card.